Newspaper Page Text
Mjtroh 13, 1912] THE
Editorial 1
Dr. Jowett has a way of saying practical as
well as beautiful things. The last that we have
seen was in reference to the complaint which we
sometimes near concerning the numerous collections.
"Some people," says he, "confuse the
number of appeals they hear with the number
of times they give. The very mention of an appeal
makes them sweat with remembrance of their
own generosity^"
The new President of Princeton University,
Dr. Ilibben, is a minister, though for many years
connected with the Princeton faculty. The
President of Hanover College, another Presbyterian
institution, was recently ordained to the
ministry by the Presbytery of New Albany. The
President of Lafayette College, at Easton, Pa.,
who began as a layman, is also now an ordained
minister. The tendencv seems to he towards
getting back into one of the old ways.
The "Christian Conservation Congress" of the
"Men and Religion Forward Movement" is the
next great meeting advertised. It is to be a congress
for gathering up the messages and meaning
and results of the campaigns now in progress.
It is to be held in New York April 19-24. Its
chief speakers, of the "laymen" are to be President
Taft, Ambassador Bryce, "William J. Bryan,
Booker T. Washington, Robert E. Speer, John
R. Mott, and others, while from the ranks of the
ministry there will be Dr. J. II. Jowett, Bishop
Greer. Bishop McDowell and others. A great
feature of the meeting is to be a parade, which
will be reviewed by President Taft. Delegates
to the number of three thousand will be apportioned
among the cities in which the campaigns
have been held.
If this country wishes to import trouble it
cannot do it in a surer way than by receding
from its principles of complete separation of
Church and State. Every act yielding to the encroachments
of any religious body is an invitation
to evils untold. It has been claimed that not
less than one-half of all the turmoil and trouble
which has marked English history has been the
product of the unwholesome relation in Qreat
Britain of the ecclesiastical and secular governments.
There is no danger in this country of any
ecclesiastical establishment, but there is great
danger of the dominance of one ecclesiastical
body, and that a body which is the most undemocratic,
the most despotic, the furthest in
spirit and organization and method and principle
A f oil I ? M.l.l - -L -
\jm. an tuai aic us, ix uuuy 111 WIllCU IIIC
people have no rule or authority and in which
these are delivered over entirely to a few who
perpetuate their own line and shut the people
out.
A certain bishop is credited with saying that
"if St. Paul were living to-day he would be conducting
a paper." We are not disposed to say
what the great apostle Paul would be doing if he
were on earth to-day further than that he would
refuse "to glory, save in the cross of our Lord
Jesus Christ," and would know nothing among
the learned and the lowly of earth "save Jesus
Christ and him crucified. This would include a
wiae range or spiritual truth, and if Paul were
now living on the earth he might conduct a paper
as a means of spreading the truth as widely as
possible. Certain it is that the press has a
powerful influence. An evil press corrupts and
disorganizes the life of a nation; a pure press
enlightens, lifts and ennobles the people. This is
the age of newspapers. Shall the corrupt and
false prevail, or shall the exponents of truth
&nd righteousness win the day V
PRESBYTERIAN OF THE S
Votes and
A conference of professional and collegiate
men and women from everv nnivprsitv nnrl *?nl_
lege in Virginia, will be held at the Centenary
M. E. church in Richmond, March 29-31. Pastors,
professors, secretaries, missionaries and
others representing evangelical denominations
will deliver addresses. The design is to make
known and emphasize the paramount facts and
the unprecedented opportunities in the worldwide
work of healing, educating and evangelizing
in mission lands. All churches and societies are
invited to send delegates. The evening meetings
will be of a popular character and open to the
public. Illustrated lectures, missionary exhibits,
pamphlets, curios, photographs, maps, and charts
Hum xureigii lanus win contrioute to the informing
and inspiriting features of the meetings.
Elsewhere in this issue will be found an announcement
and program of the conference.
An idea of what many big universities in
America have come to, is suggested in some illustrative
incidents related by Mr. John R. Mott,
of the Student Volunteer Movement, in addressing
the annual London meeting of the Student
Christian movement in Queen's Hall. lie told
of a Yale student who in writing his impressions
of the University said, "Life would be very
pleasant here if it were not for the lectures, reading,
and examinations." A Princeton man is
recorded as having said to a comrade, "If we
don't look out, President "Wilson will make this
place an educational institution." After nil
the big universities may be first rate places for
chaperoning the idle sons of the over-rich.
India has four thousand missionaries and the
United States has seventy thousand ministers.
India has over three hundred thousand people,
while the United States has less than one hundred
thousand. Christianity is advancing more
rapidly in proportion to men and means in that
land than in this. At the present rate of progress
and with possible decline of vital goodliness
i:< America, India may be sending men endowed
with the apostolic spirit to this favored land before
the close of another century. Men of the
type of William Carey and Henry Martyn and
Adoniram Judson and Alexander Duff and Jacob
Chamberlain?the men who planted and nourished
Christianitv in Tndin mnv vpt Wnma
^ ~ J V V MWWIWV V/i ~
ing need of our American civilization.
The Herald and Presbyter calls attention to
the fact that the coming convention of the Religious
Education Association, to be held in St.
Louis, announces as its general theme for that,
gathering "The Training of Religious Leaders,"
the need of them, their training, preparation,
experiments in preparation, leadership through
theological seminaries, teacher-training, etc, and
yet embraces in its list of speakers on these subjects
no representatives whatever of any of the
many theological seminaries of the Presbyterian
Church, and but one man from its seventy or
more colleges. Chicago University, Union SemiTiflrv
nf Npw Ynrt arirl aIUow
^ w- a <t, mm uniti ouuil LULIULI^,
however, are largely represented. One who
knows the facts will readily see that the kind
of "leadership" which the convention is likely
and seems designed to develop is such as the
Church at large has no need for and such as will,
if put upon |he Church, work its disintegration.
The "theological shade of the program" is very
evident. The so-called Religious Education Association
is an organization distinctly in advocacy
of the destructive school of criticism.
\
OUTH : "" (M7) 9
Comments
Some time ago we quoted an article from a
secular paper in which the statement was made
that "on December 5, 1861, the Southern Presbyterian
Church was organized in the historic Presbyterian
church of Savannah. Ga." One of our
most accurate and eminent ministers has written
us, calling attention to the error and indicating
the correct place and date of the historic event,
in these words: "After the Philadelphia Assembly,
at which the 'Spring Resolutions' were
adopted and other violent things done, a convention
was called in Atlanta and the whole
situation discussed. It was agreed to invite Presbyteries
to send commissioners to an Assembly to
be held in Augusta, December 4th, and Dr.
Palmer was requested to preach the opening sermon.
This he did and on the organization of the
Assembly he was elected Moderator."
We have found no clearer putting of the
question as to the government's partnership with
the liquor interests and invasion of the rights
and laws of the States than in the following,
from the Ilerald and Presbyter:
"If Congress should do nothing else this session
it should pass the Sheppard-Kenyon bill to
prevent the shipment of liquor into dry territory,
by which State laws are nullified and the
efforts of the people at self-protection literally
set at naught. For instance, Kentucky has, by
its county local option law, shut liquor selling
out of most counties and forbids the shipping
of liquor from a wet county into one of these
dry counties. But liquor dealers in Ohio are
able to /ship liquor into any of these Kentucky
dry counties, and the United States Supreme
Court upholds them in so doing. More than this,
fl Kpntnntv ^? 1
uiotiuci vji uiewer can put nis wares
on a boat, send it over to the Ohio side of the
Ohio River, so that it is in Ohio or Indiana territory
for a minute, and steam back immediately
to the Kentucky side and, protected by the
. United States Supreme Court, defy the laws of
Kentucky and force his beer or whisky into any
county of the State. This is such an outrage on
all justice and right and decency and good
morals and State rights and home rights that
Congress should give this bill the right of way
and pass it at once. Let every reader write to
some member of Congress immediately and demand
the passage of this bill before the political
campaign opens up."
Justice Charbonneau, of the Superior Court
of Canada, delivered for that court on February
23, what the press dispatches pronounce one of
tho mncf imr>A**on* ?
v..~ ,...riiuub, inu.il uuuipieie ana most
sweeping judgments ever delivered on the question
of the status of the ecclesiastical law of the
Roman Catholic Church. The claim has been
made that on account of the terms of a treaty
by which Quebec was attached to the government
of Great Britain the Church of Rome had certain
powers superior to those of the State, and especially
in the application of its laws of marriage.
The judgment just rendered excludes from the
consideration of Canadian courts not only the
"Ne Temere Decree," but virtually all other
ecclesiastical legislation. It was delivered in
connection with the declaration of the validity
and binding nature of the marriaure of two Cntti
olics by a Methodist minister. It declares that
the decision of an ecclesiastical tribunal, such
as that which first declared the Hebert-Clouatre
marriage null, is of absolutely no interest in any
court, that the "Ne Temere Decree" possesses
spiritual obligations only and does not affect in
any way the legality of the marriage.